Available thesis topics

Students interested in topics related to usable security and privacy have the opportunity to do their master theses / bachelor theses / practical research project (Einzelpraktikum) at the Research Institute CODE (Bundeswehr University Munich). More information on the research group on Usable Security and Privacy Group can be found on our website.

We offer a large variety of topics, including but not limited to:

• Behavioral Biometrics (Ansprechpartner: Lukas Mecke)
• Usable Security in Smart Homes (Ansprechpartner: Sarah Prange)
• Novel Security Mechanisms based on Gaze (Ansprechpartner: Yasmeen Abdrabou)
• Novel Blockchain User Interfaces (Ansprechpartner: Michael Froehlich)
• Physiologicacl Security (Ansprechpartner: Mariam Hassib)
• Social Engineering
• Virtual Reality as Research Methodology (Ansprechpartner: Rivu Radiah)

A list of current topics is available on our website.

If you are interested in working with us, please get in touch with the respective contact person or send an email to Dr. Ken Pfeuffer.

Details

Liebe Studieninteressierte,

im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes untersuchen wir das Interaktionsverhalten mit Smartphones. Dazu suchen wir Teilnehmer für eine kurze Online-Studie (Bearbeitungsdauer: 5 Minuten).

Um an der Studie teilzunehmen, rufen Sie bitte den folgenden Link mit ihrem Smartphone auf:
Online Studie zu Smartphone Interaktion.

Bei Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Kai Lebruschka.

Besten Dank für die Teilnahme!

Details

Problem Statement

Usable security for virtual and augmented reality systems (VR/AR) is an area that is relatively underexplored. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of authentication mechanisms for VR/AR, while considering the usability and security aspects, specifically potential attacks.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Our homes are currently equipped with ubiquitous computing services, be it our smart phones, smart TVs, Alex, or lifelogging devices. The availability of these devices offers novel opportunities for user authentication, as well as raises privacy concerns and potential novel security attacks. This thesis, aims to explore the raised opportunities and challenges from the availability of smart devices in our daily vicinity.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop / reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Rendering the user’s body in virtual reality increases immersion and presence – the illusion of ‘being there’. Recent technology enables determining the pose and position of the body to render them accordingly while interacting within the virtual environment. However, it is unclear how users perceive different avatar styles. Additionally, how any manipulation in the avatars representation would influence the users’ states. In this thesis, we aim to explore the influencing factors of avatar perception.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR and OptiTracker hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Develop / reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

In the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to users’ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. However, most approaches for sensing stress, involve obtrusive technologies, such as physiological sensors attached to users' bodies and not yet adapted to VR/AR. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress, while considering VR/AR setups.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with stress and affective computing
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

In the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to users’ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress and approaches of stress management in VR/AR setups.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with stress and affective computing
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

We're looking for a practical research student for user research and UI design in the context of an interdisciplinary research project at the intersection of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science. You will be working as part of a team of researchers and students from these domains.

Tasks:

• UI design and information visualization: Employ a user-centered design process to design a touch-based UI for a portable measurement instrument for cell research, including aspects such as information visualization and measurement control.
• User research: Adequately inform the design choices by assessing and considering needs and preferences of a variety of target user groups.
• Prototyping: Create suitable prototypes for the user-centered design process and for presenting the developed designs to various stakeholders.
• A first design prototype and insights from user interviews exist to get you started.

Requirements:

• Interest in interdisciplinary work, innovative technology, and cell research
• Background in human-computer interaction, information visualization, and/or user interface design
• Practical experience with user-centered design processes and UI/UX design methods and tools
• Teamplayer, independent scientific work, creative problem solving

The project is initially offered as an “Einzelpraktikum” for Master students (Media Informatics, MCI) for one or two semesters (6/12 ECTS, respectively).

Interested?

Send your application with transcript of records and examples of your UI design work via email to Dr. Daniel Buschek.

Details

Effizienz ist ein wichtiger Faktor der Usabilityforschung. Im Allgemeinen beschreibt die Effizienz eines Systems den Aufwand, welchen ein Nutzer erbringen muss, um eine bestimmte Aufgabe zu erfüllen. Effizienz wird meist in Zeit gemessen und evaluiert.

Die wissensbasierte Authentifizierung (bspw. PIN) stellt ein Beispiel für eine solche Aufgabe dar. Als Maß der Effizienz dient hier in der Regel die Zeit, welche für die korrekte Eingabe eines Passwortes/PIN benötigt wird. Neue Erkenntnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass es neben der aktiven Eingabe weitere Phasen gibt, welche sowohl die gemessene als auch die gefühlte Effizienz des Mechanismus beeinflussen. Dabei ist neben der reinen Existenz dieser Phasen auch das Verhältnis der Phasen zueinander maßgebend für die User Experience.

In diesem Einzelpraktikum soll der Einfluss der verschiedenen Authentifizierungsphasen auf die Effizienz untersucht werden. Dafür sollen mehrere Modifikationen eines PIN-Eingabesystems entwickelt und im Feldtest studiert werden.

Aufgaben:

1. Literaturrecherche / selbstständiges Aneignen von Fachwissen
2. Ausarbeitung der zu testenden Konzepte (im Team)
3. Entwicklung der Studiensoftware (Android oder iOS)
4. Planung und Durchführung der Nutzerstudie (im Team)
5. Analyse und Aufbereitung der Studienergebnisse

Bei Erfolg des Projektes besteht die Möglichkeit an einer internationalen Publikation mitzuwirken.

Details

Description

This projects purpose is to investigate in building a full body tracking system based on self-made trackers which are usable by the HTC VIVE and its Lighthouses. We want to compare the original HTC VIVE tracker with a varying amount of self-made trackers in order to use it for VR sport analysis.

Tasks

• Building a set of at least 10 tracker based on the enclosed literature
• Implementation of an application for testing purposes
• Compare the existing Tracker with the self-made tracker in terms of usability for VR sport analysis

Preferred qualification

• Experience in hardware and software prototyping
• Experience in C# programming for Unity 3D
• Interest in performing experiments
• Interest in performance enhancement in sports

Suggested Reading

• The HiveTrackers will serve as the foundation for the self-made trackers Tracker foundations
• This project can help to create suitable sensors Sensor foundations

Details

Gaze-based head gestures are a hands-free interaction technique using the occulo-vestibular reflex. A bachelor thesis showed already that this interaction technique works for checking checkboxes and answering dialogs.
This thesis should research whether advanced interaction, such as drag & drop operations, using scrollbars and manipulation of 3D objects, is possible with gaze-based head gestures.

Tasks

• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Develop software supporting the interaction method
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Details

Smooth pursuit eye movements can be used for gaze-based interfaces. This thesis should research the usage of smooth pursuit targets in a VR environment for interactive story telling. The thesis will be done in co-supervision by Sylvia Rothe.

Tasks

• Get familiar with hardware (Fove) and software (Unity)
• Find and study related literature
• Find or create royalty free VR content (360 degree videos or animations) with moving targets and create an interactive story
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation of measured data and questionnaires
• Write all down in a thesis

Details

Discrete Locomotion (e.g. teleportation techniques) is due to the fact of being less susceptible to cybersickness a widely applied paradigm for locomotion in Virtual Reality (VR). This topic is centered around the development of a spherical representation of a World in Miniature (WIM) which serves as a navigation tool for first-person locomotion in virtual environments (VEs) such as VR games or other immersive experiences. Subsequently a developed spherical mapping needs to be aligned with a fully tangible spherical controller that allows for the exploration of the VE by rotation or possibly the integration of finger based gestures. Finally, a study has to be conducted to test the developed concept against established discrete techniques and/or another approaches for a tangible WIM based on a flat surface.

Tasks:

• Development of a spherical mapping for a cartesian 3D space.
• Exploration and implementation of concepts for tangible interaction for locomotion by teleportation.
• Execution and evaluation of a user study for comparative results.

Requirements and prerequisits:

• Strong knowledge of a 3D engine (e.g. Unity or UE4) and a good understanding of algebraic basics of 3D programming.
• Interest in tangible VR-interaction and locomotion techniques (e.g. in first person games).
• Ability to work with and eventually extend existing hardware prototypes.

Details

Description

Cryptocurrencies have gained attention in the public eye increasingly. A 2018 study found that two thirds of European consumers are aware of cryptocurrencies. Yet, less than 10% of people surveyed actually bought cryptocurrency. One possible explanation is the high (technical) understanding required to engage with the technology.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate how novel onboarding strategies affect user experience for users who previously did not engage with cryptocurrency technology. How do existing Coin Management Systems (Wallets) approach the onboarding of new users? At which points do new users struggle during the initial setup? How can effective onboarding facilitate a better user experience?

Tasks

• Review of related literature
• Analyze and categorize existing wallets
• Design and conduct user study (with cryptocurrency non-users)
• Development and implementation of an effective onboarding system
• Evaluation of the implemented system

Requirements

• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Interest in designing and conducting user studies
• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Web Development Experience
• Interest in cryptocurrencies

Related Work

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-54970-4_33 https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/ING_International_Survey_Mobile_Banking_2018.pdf https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-06019-002 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3027128 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8631433 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-70284-1_2 https://www.useronboard.com/The-Elements-of-User-Onboarding-Intro.pdf https://www.appcues.com/blog/user-onboarding-ui-ux-patterns

Details

Description

Over the past years, cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum) and their underlying technology, Blockchain, have experienced increased interest and a steadily growing user base. Contrary to transactions in centralized systems, it is hard to foresee the time a transaction needs to complete.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate how the status of cryptocurrency transactions can be “best” displayed to users. How existing cryptocurrency and blockchain solutions display the status of transactions to users? Which information is shown and which temporal metaphors are used? How do (end-) users perceive different methods? And how do different transaction times influence, how users perceive them?

Tasks

• Review of related literature (wait times, loading screens, display of async transaction stati)
• Creation of “Transaction Models” for comparable systems (banking, messaging, cryptocurrencies)
• Analysis how existing systems (e.g. wallets) display transactions status
• Development and prototyping of improved methods to display the transaction status of cryptocurrencies
• Design of a user study and evaluation of the developed methods

Requirements

• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Interest in designing and conducting user studies
• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Web Development Experience (optional)
• Interest in crypto currencies (optional)

Related Work

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702428 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2892308 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3232092 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3232086 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3300835 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10447318.2017.1305051 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003687017301485?via%3Dihub https://medium.com/pixelpoint/track-blockchain-transactions-like-a-boss-with-web3-js-c149045ca9bf https://medium.com/mobify-design-team/designing-for-the-appearance-of-speed-aaabc7f568c2 https://uxdesign.cc/what-you-should-know-about-skeleton-screens-a820c45a571a https://www.viget.com/articles/a-bone-to-pick-with-skeleton-screens/

Details

Description

In this project, we would like to explore how VR can be used to enhance Dance experiences. From a performer perspective, the VR setting may be used to further visualize movements for example. From the observer perspective, it would be interesting to see whether these enhancements are viewed simply on a digital screen or through an HMD as well. Can it happen synchronously or only one-after-the-other?

The aim of this thesis is to explore this topic.

Tasks

• Review of related work on performer/observer interactions in digitally enhanced social viewing/entertainment/public art viewing (e.g. festival, theater) situations
• Creating an application that tracks fully body movements of VR user
• Enhancing dance movements with a design space of visualizations
• Evaluating the viewing experience from a performer and observer perspective in a small study
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in performing arts
• Interest in VR
• Good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

In this project, we would like to create a design space for usable security interactions in AR/VR that are also ergonomically appropriate.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how current interactions affect our body long-term and whether they need improvement.

Tasks

• Review of related work on VR/AR interactions from an ergonomic perspective
• Creating an application that tracks fully body movements of VR user
• Evaluating the long-term effect of VR/AR interactions on the 3D model
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

HMDs are used in collaborative settings, whereby the HMD user is often confronted with real world users that are not actively participating in the virtual or augmented reality. We are interested how these two different sets of people (HMD users vs. real world users) interact with each other, for example during interruption.

Tasks

• Review of related work on collaboration/CSCW/VR/AR/Mixed working environments
• Developing a prototype of a virtual reality environment that tests a number of designs for controlling user interactions
• Conducting an in-depth investigation of the potential and challenges of a virtual environment in a collaborative setting
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Good / Very good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

Receiving suspicious content through emails, SMS, social media or even phonecalls is an annoying experience which could lead to catastrophic consequences (i.e. by pressing on a phishing link or downloading an attachment). In this project we aim to collect experiences through a web-based tool in order to build a taxonomy and investigate ways to combat phishing attacks.

Tasks

• Review of related literature on phishing and suspicious content threats, taxonomies, and approaches in usable security.
• Design and implementation of a web-based tool to crowdsource examples of suspicious content and personal experiences in high quality
• Conducting an in-depth evaluation of collected data and building a comprehensive taxonomy

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Web development experience
• Interest Usable Privacy and Security

For further information please contact:
mariam.hassib@unibw.de , yasmeen.essam@unibw.de

Details

Inhalte

Das bayerische Landesforschungsinstitut fortiss und IBM werden im Rahmen des IBM fortiss Center forAI das Thema Stress-Management für sicherheitskritische Anwendungen erforschen. Dafuür wird einKonzept entwickelt, um Stress bei Einsatzkräften der Feuerwehr zu überwachen und managen. Die Ideen werden prototypisch umgesetzt und präsentiert. Die Workshops und Gespräche während desPraktika können entweder in englischer oder deutscher Sprache gehalten werden.

Bewerbung

Beschreiben Sie kurz Ihre Motivation, relevante Fachkenntnisse, beispielsweise aus früheren Kursen,Jobs und anderen Projekten, die Ihre Fähigkeiten in einem oder mehreren der folgenden Bereichedemonstrieren: Programmierung, Benutzererfahrung, Nutzerstudien, Prototyping.
Senden Sie es anyuanting.liu ät fortiss.org

Details

Description

VR research prominently focuses on making virtual experiences as natural and realistic as possible. However, VR also provides ideal opportunities to create experiences where users are challenged in creative ways, both physically and mentally. Imagine, for instance, attempting to avoid objects in VR, while the HMD viewport moves in the opposite direction relative to the user's real-world movement.

The aim of this project is to investigate the user experience of various virtual challenges, where the challenge arises from mismatches between the user's virtual and real-world movements. Another consideration is whether such mismatches could be used as a teaching/awareness tool, for example, to experience physical disabilities or altered states such as intoxication.

Tasks

• Literature review: charting existing research on mismatches between real and virtual movement
• Design and implementation of several distorted ways to move and interact in VR
• Implementation of virtual tasks and challenges
• Design and conduction of a user study

Requirements

• Interest in virtual reality
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills
• Prior experience with VR technologies (Unity, SteamVR) is considered an asset

Details

Description

Mid-air gestures enable new and exciting ways of interacting with technology, especially because devices can be interacted with from a distance. Typically, gesturing follows the pointing metaphor, wherein one or both arms are extended to point towards the device, e.g., a display. However, a persistent problem is the expressive and novel nature of the interaction: users may feel uncomfortable gesturing in places wherein they receive unwanted attention. Additionally, prolonged gesturing can lead to fatigue.

The aim of this project is to investigate new approaches to gestural interaction that could make the interaction less visible and less tiresome. In particular, the aim is to investigate gestures that are carried out by holding the arm against the body, instead of reaching out with the arm.

Tasks

• Designing and implementing the overall logic for on-body gestures
• Implementing a prototype public display application
• Designing and conducting a user study

Requirements

• Interest in novel interaction techniques
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills

Details

Description

VR research prominently focuses on making virtual experiences as natural and realistic as possible. However, VR also provides users with capabilities they don't have in the real world, such as observing their surroundings outside of their normal viewpoint.

The aim of this project is to investigate whether enabling VR users to switch between their own and another user's viewport can enhance certain collaborative scenarios, how this affects the user experience, and what potential opportunities and challenges arise from viewport switching.

Tasks

• Literature review: charting existing research on viewport switching and out-of-body experiences
• Design and implementation of one ore more ways to switch between viewports in VR
• Implementation of virtual collaborative tasks
• Design and conduction of a user study

Requirements

• Interest in virtual reality, in particular collaborative and/or social aspects of VR
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills
• Prior experience with VR technologies (Unity, SteamVR) is considered an asset

Details

Voll immersive Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) wie die Oculus Rift oder die HTC Vive ermöglichen ein direktes Erleben digitaler Daten. Virtuell kann man unter Verwendung dieser Technologien an Orte reisen, die weit entfernt sind, zerstörte Städte als digitale Replikaten erkunden oder Technologien wie den ein Mondfahrzeug erleben. Das deutsche Museum nutzt Virtual Reality um in ihrer Ausstellung den Besucher Dinge zugänglich zu machen. So kann man dort Exponate in ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext erleben, wie etwa die Flugmaschine von Lindbergh.Eine besondere Herausforderung die sich im Museumsalltag ergibt ist der Betrieb des Systems im Zusammen spiel mit den Benutzern. Die internationalen Besucher aller Altersklassen bilden dabei eine sehr diverse Gruppe aus oft naiven Nutzern gegenüber VR Technologie. Die für Museumsinstallationen verfügbaren HMDs stammen aus dem Konsumerbereich und haben den Nachteil, dass sie rein technologisch für Heimanwendungen entwickelt wurden. Zudem ist der Dauerbetreib von HMDs für hohe Besucherzahlen eine Herausforderung, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten Entwicklung von HMD basierten Systemen keine Rolle gespielt hat.Die ausgeschriebene Masterarbeit besteht daher aus drei Teilen.Im ersten Teil wirst du in Zusammenarbeit mit dem deutschen Museum das Nutzererlebnis ind er aktuellen Ausstellung analysieren. Als Grundlage dienen hier für Methoden die aus der Forschung zu Public Displays. Besonders wichtig ist dabei die Analyse nicht auf die Zeit in VR zu begrenzen. Der Nutzerstrom an einer solchen Installaion beginnt mit dem Moment in dem der Nutzer auf das System aufmerksam wird und endet nach der Nutzung des HMDs, wenn der Kunde sein Erlebnis an andere kommuniziert. Dieser Ergebnisse sollen mit einer Literaturrecherche zu Methoden und Gestaltungsrichtlinien von öffentlichen Installationen verbunden werden. Das Ergebnis dieser Analyse ist eine Kategorisierung der Probleme und deren Priorisierung.Im zweiten Teil wirst du zu den erkannten Herausforderungen neuartige Lösungskonzepte erarbeiten. Hierbei können deine Interessen und Fähigkeiten einen wichtigen Einfluss auf das Ergebnis nehmen. Denn im dritten Teil geht es um eine prototypische Umsetzung der erarbeiteten Konzepte für die Installation von VR Hardware im halb öffentlichen Raum. Du wirst die Konzepte in der offizielle VR-Ausstellung des deutschen Museums implementieren und unter realen Bedingungen evaluieren.

Aufgaben:

• Literaturrecherche zu den Themen: Methoden zum Design und Evaluierung von Public Displays. Methoden zum Design und Evaluierung von interaktiven Exponenten in der Öffentlichkeit
• Analyse der Herausforderungen in der VR Ausstellung des Deutschen Museum aus Besuchersicht
• Konzeptionierung von Lösungen zu ausgewählten Problemen
• Implementierung in das VR System
• Evaluierung

Ihre Kompetenzen:

• Sehr gute Kenntnisse im Bereich der User Experience Methoden
• Erfahrung im Durchführen und Auswerten von Nutzerstudien
• Kenntnisse in Unity/ C#
• Erfahrung in der Arbeit mit VR Technologien
• Bereitschaft Studien im deutschen Museum durchzuführen
• Interesse am Umgang mit Menschenn

Details

Description

Mesh simplification intends to preserve the visual appearance of a 3D model while reducing its number of faces. Due to the rise of mobile computing and VR applications, mesh simplification becomes a critical phase in 3D modeling for reducing the rendering complexity of a model. A 3D model designer initially starts with a high-quality model and then simplify its faces using modern 3D software, such as Blender, Maya and etc.

However, aggressively using mesh simplification function in the software quickly leads to visible defects, for instance, holes in the grid, jagged edge, and other similar errors. Thereby a designer must carefully dealing with these result and sometimes manually fix these errors.

In this thesis, you will perform user-centered research to investigate elicitation process, uncertainty and ambiguity of human preferences while mesh simplification in 3D modeling.

Tasks

You should:

• Conduct extensive literature review regarding 3D modeling, human preferences, mesh simplification, and other related fields
• Be able to understand the fundamental ideas of existing mesh simplification functions in industrial software
• Design appropriate user studies and corresponding evaluation strategies or benchmarks separately for general users and expert designers
• Use existing or develop (if necessary) 3D program(s) to conduct the designed user studies
• Perform well-structured evaluation and summarizing all outcomes in a written thesis

Requirements

• Interest in 3D geometric modeling with a background in related software and a programming language
• Understanding the basics of human-computer interaction research approaches
• Concept development and designing appropriate user studies
• Independent scientific work, creative problem solving

Note that the thesis initially starts with biweekly meetings for literature and development discussion in the first two or three monthsand then switch to weekly meeting for user study and result evaluation discussion.

Interested?

Send your application with a transcript of records, examples of your designed models or programming projects (GitHub page is ideal) via email to Changkun Ou.

Initial Reading List

• Marks, J., Ruml, W., Ryall, K., Seims, J., Shieber, S., Andalman, B., Pfister, H. (1997). Design galleries. In Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'97 (pp. 389-400). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/258734.258887
• Hoppe, H., DeRose, T., Duchamp, T., McDonald, J., & Stuetzle, W. (1993). Mesh optimization. In Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'93 (Vol. 86, pp. 19-26). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/166117.166119
• Garland, M., & Heckbert, P. S. (1997). Surface simplification using quadric error metrics. In Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'97 (pp. 209-216). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/258734.258849
• Ju, T., Losasso, F., Schaefer, S., & Warren, J. (2002). Dual contouring of hermite data. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 21(3), 339-346. https://doi.org/10.1145/566654.566586

Useful Link

• Information on Master Theses
• Thesis Template

Details

Description

Virtual reality provides novel opportunities for users to experience immersive simulations of reality. At the same time, we still have a limited understanding of how such simulations can go beyond just imitating the real world. This project focuses on musical interfaces, in particular, playing piano.

The objective of this work is to come up and implement novel concepts for playing piano in virtual reality. One possible example is a concept for tracking finger movements with a motion tracking system to better understand performance and to build user interfaces with the goal of enhancing this performance.

This project is available for 1 or 2 bachelor/master students.

Tasks

• Review of related literature
• Designing new concepts for piano playing in VR
• Implementing VR visualization and tracking / sensing
• User study
• Analysis and report of the findings

Requirements

• programming in Unity 3D / c#
• experience with hardware programming helpful
• interest in working with Motion Tracking
• interest in piano playing (or musical instruments in general) a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Virtual Reality is gaining more and more importance in our daily lives as we allow ourselves to be immersed in a simulated environment. Among its many useful application, VR can be used to carry out meetings among group of people or even be used in E-learning where the participants can be aided. Gatherings can also extend to examples such as 'Skype Session with family', 'Gathering with friends' etc. During such group meetings, where the environment is essentially a multi user environment involving interaction between participants, it is important that each participant can be completely immersed in the environment and for that, interaction and visualization techniques need to be developed. The aim of the thesis is to explore the interaction and visualization techniques for social gatherings.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Conceptual design of interaction and visual techniques between avatars that enhance the virtual immersion
• Carry out a initial survey using 'Oculus Go' to determine the necessary interaction features for enhancement
• Implementation of the design which successfully integrates the various interface design to enhance group communication in VR
• Evaluation of the design through a user study

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge and interest about VR
• Able to work independently
• Unity Programming

Interested students should get in touch with Radiah Rivu (radiahrivu_at_gmail.com)

Details

Description

Emotion is a psyscho-physiological process triggered by conscious/unconscious perception of objects or situations. Emotions play an important role in human communication. Emotion assessment is often carried out through analysis of users’ emotional expressions and/or physiological signals and eliciting emotion can be purposeful for various research work. The advent of Virtual Reality devices provides an opportunity to explore part of the research in VR which have been conducted in the lab until now.

The objective of this thesis is to obtain a thorough understanding of how suitable Virtual Reality is for conducting psychological research. The student is required to review previous work that investigates the use of VR as a research tool continuing to investigate one use case in more detail. The thesis requires the design and implementation of a user study to compare if VR is as effective as the Real World to measure emotional experience on the valence-arousal scale.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Review of relevant research questions in the application area
• Running a comparative user study (both in Real and Virtual World)
• Analysis, reflection and discussion of the outcomes

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Nice to have experience with 3D modelling and programming with Unity

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Description

The objective of this thesis is to understand how interpersonal interaction in Virtual Reality differs compared to similar contexts in the real world. This knowledge is valuable in order to understand whether real world studies can be complemented with investigations in the real world.

The successful application is required to study the effects of proxemics and F-formations in VR, delving into one specific application scenario. Possible areas include but are not limited to public displays, automotive user interfaces, e-learning, etc.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Review of relevant research questions in the application area
• Running a comparative user study (both in Real and Virtual World)
• Analysis, reflection and discussion of the outcomes

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Nice to have: Experience with 3D modelling and programming with Unity

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Description

In Human-Computer Interaction research, evaluation is used to understand the strengths and weaknesses of novel user interface concepts and their implementations. The objective of this thesis is to understand the research questions that can be answered using Virtual Reality. The advent of Virtual Reality provides us with an opportunity to transfer parts of the research until now being conducted in the field to the lab. With this goal in mind, we aim to understand how human behaviour is affected by various factors in Virtual Reality. Our objective is to gain an insight on how the visual appearance (for example: design of the room, certain appearance of objects, etc) of the fully immersive environment affect how humans behave in a certain context and how (visual) manipulations of the VR user's context influence behavior.

The task of the successful application is to review previous work and subsequently investigate one application area in more detail. Possible areas are automotive interfaces, large public displays or appliances for smart homes. The work includes a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Review of relevant research questions in the application area
• Running a comparative user study (both in Real and Virtual World)
• Analysis, reflection and discussion of the outcomes

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Nice to have: Experience with 3D modelling and programming with Unity

Details

Generative music systems are becoming more and more relevant nowadays. In the near future Artificial Intelligences will become evenly equal partners in music making scenarios. Therefore we have to find ways to interact with systems that are able to make their own decisions and have their own creative mind. Established communication with human musicians are eye-contact, gestures, verbal expressions.How can we communicate with digital musicians, how can they communicate with humans?

Tasks:

• Development of interaction concepts for the handling of AI/generative systems in a musical context.
• Implementation of a functional prototype that demonstrates the basic concept.
• Conducting a study with students.

Requirements:

• Interest and experience in music theory.
• Experience in programming and hardware-prototyping.
• Ambition to delve into hardware and software.

Suggested Reading:

• Yamaha Artificial Intelligence (AI) Transforms a Dancer into a Pianist
• Mateas, M. (2001). Expressive AI: A hybrid art and science practice. Leonardo, 34(2), 147-153.
• De Mantaras, R. L., & Arcos, J. L. (2002). AI and music: From composition to expressive performance. AI magazine, 23(3), 43.
• Francois, A. R., Chew, E., & Thurmond, D. (2007, June). Visual feedback in performer-machine interaction for musical improvisation. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on New interfaces for musical expression (pp. 277-280). ACM.

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User interfaces facilitate interaction with digital content. Concepts such as "Undo" make it possible to reverse actions that did not have the desired effect. But what would interfaces and the corresponding interactions look like if irreversible actions were central components of interaction design? In this thesis a design exploration should be performed that focusses on materials like paper which affordances lead to actions such as tearing, crumpling, folding, punching holes, etc.. How can familiar concepts such as punch cards or origami help to design intelligible interaction metaphors, that create commitment to the actions we as users perform with technology? What impact will such concepts have on prospective actions?

Tasks:

• Concept Development.
• Design Experimentations.
• Prototyping.
• Evaluation in form of a User Study.

Requirements:

• Prototyping Experience.
• Interest in Design and UX Design.

Suggested Reading:

• Zimmerman, John, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. "Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 2007.
• Auger, James. "Speculative design: crafting the speculation." Digital Creativity 24.1 (2013): 11-35.
• Cox, Anna L., et al. "Design frictions for mindful interactions: The case for microboundaries." Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016.

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Description

Developing an Android app for predicting personality traits via smartphone usage

In the PhoneStudy project, an interdisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, statisticians, and computer scientists develop an Android app, which tracks and logs the user’s smartphone behaviour to predict personality traits. For example, we track the number of users’ calls, sms, and app usage, which might predict how extraverted the user is. The app will be distributed among participants in spring 2018, which will then use the app for several months. There are several tasks for media informatics students in this project (cf. below), from which you can choose. Please contact me when you are interested in the project and will give you more details.

Tasks

You can choose between different tasks:

• Configuring and working on the server, its scalability and stability, as well as the data base (MariaDB)
• Working on the internal web based front end of the server, which depicts the current status of participants and logged data
• Further develop the app: integrating new features and fixing current bug
• Quality management: Developing automatic testing scripts

Minimum requirements

• Interested in interdisciplinary projects
• High communication skills, especially willing to communicate interdisciplinary
• Able to work independently
• Previous experience with server configuration, (Android) app development, web development, data bases (depending on the chosen task)
• High frustration tolerance

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Description

A growing body of research shows that personality traits can be automatically inferred from users' digital texts, e.g. conversations with chat bots or social media posts. Like other personal data, we think that users' personality data might be captured in the future without users' knowledge and out of their control. This raises, in our opinion, ethical and privacy concerns and might potentially lead to misuse. We assume that depending on the context, users might not be comfortable with being profiled and its potential consequences. Together with you, we want to find out, which coping strategies users would employ to avoid being profiled by intelligent algorithms, i.e. how they try to ``trick'' the algorithm.

Tasks

The thesis comprises of the following tasks:

• Conduct an extensive survey of related research with a focus on personality assessment and attitude towards data sharing.
• Design a suitable online survey based on previous research to collect coping strategies
• Recruit n = 300 participants, who fill out the online survey
• Evaluate the findings using qualitative and quantitative research analysis methods.

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Rodeghero et al. have used eye tracking to investigate what aspects of source code developers looktowards for understanding a code base. Their work, however, was focused on traditional software development using imperative programming languages.

With data-driven as a new, growing development paradigm, many of the researchin traditional software engineering has to stand up to the questions whether it applies to this paradigm as well.

In this thesis you will address this question by:

• Perform a literature analysis
• Replicating the original study for traditional software development
• Extend it by performing the study in a Machine Learning context
• Compare the results of the two studies
• Writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience
• (Optional) co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in german and/or english
• General knowledge of how to perform a user study
• General knowledge of statistical evaluation of research results

Details

Maintaining an overview of large software projects can be hard.Large modules, complex dependencies, sub-projects etc. are hardto comprehend on first glance.
An established method to cope with complex hierarchies areinterfaces with semantic zoom.

In this thesis you will explore how semantic zoom and zoomableuser interfaces (ZUIs) can be used to improve software engineering.After analyzing existing work, you will create a prototype, which youwill evaluate in a user study.

Your work consists of:

• literature review on ZUIs, software engineering tools
• designing and implementing a prototype of a ZUI for software engineering
• evaluating the user interface in a user study
• writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience

You need:

• Strong communication skills in english
• Experience with User Interface design
• A good understanding of software architecture, design, and engineering
• Good knowledge of user testing methods

Details

StackOverflow is a knowledge-sharing platform for software developers of all sorts of disciplines. For more traditionaldevelopment paradigms, the Q&A structure is straight forward, since minimal examplescan easily be posted. In the world of Machine Learning and Big Data, this is not so trivial, since many problems are inherent in the data. Sharing data is unfeasiblefor reasons of size, privacy, etc., making it harder to provide approrpiate contextfor the Q&A setting.

In this thesis you will analyze the situation by:

• Perform a literature review
• Collect and classify a sample of StackOverflow threads using the methods from Grounded Theory
• Compare Q&A threads on data-driven development with those from more traditional software engineering
• Summarize your findings in a thesis and presenting them to an audience
• (Optional) co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in english
• Good knowledge of data processing
• General knowledge of data-driven development

Details

Communication is a key challenge when collaborating on large, complex software systems.In this thesis you will explore how phyiscal objects can help developers communicatethe architecture and design of their software to other developers and non-experts.

Your work consists in:

• Brainstorm visualization ideas
• Design and prototype physical artifacts that represent software design
• Evaluate these designs regarding their benefits for communication and comprehension
• Writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience
• (optional) Co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in german and/or english
• A good understanding of software architecture, design, and engineering
• Basic knowledge of rapid prototyping, e.g. CAD, 3D printing, etc.
• Good knowledge of user testing methods

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